What’s the last thing that goes through a bee’s brain…

Bad bee humor aside, bee brains (and insect brains in general) have been fascinating me recently, as you may have noticed from previous posts about insect emotions, thrill-seeking and the like.

Today I had the joy of discovering this new study done on the Japanese honeybee, bees that show increased neural activity in the face of danger which allows them to act cooperatively. Given the mythos of Japan, and how its people also seem able to activate some part of their brain to act cooperatively and live in hive-like cities, I am completely fascinated by this research and the evolutionary differences between the Japanese honeybee and the European honeybee.

Here’s the story: Japanese bees have an evil nemesis called the Asian Giant Hornet (which also has several more poetic names like the “tiger head bee,” the “giant sparrow bee” and the “commander bee”). This hornet is a fearsome creature with a wingspan of 3 inches and a non-barbed stringer of ¼ inch. Yes, non-barbed, meaning that it can and will sting you repeatedly. With venom that contains an enzyme capable of digesting flesh and bone. Did I mention this hornet is also called the “Yak Killer?” I think you can see why.

Giant Asian HornetPhoto by Gary Alpert

No matter the strength of your exoskeleton, if you are a honeybee you live in fear of the AGH. The AGH is capable of killing 40 honeybees per minute by decapitating them with its killer mandibles. Three or four of these hornets can wipe out a honeybee hive of 30,000 bees in a few hours. They will then carry off the honeybee larvae as a food source for their own young. Nature can really be a bitch.

European honeybees are defenseless against these monsters, whose exoskeletons are impenetrable to honeybee stings. Thus, beekeepers in Asia no longer import European honeybees despite their higher honey production. The only way to fend off a potential AGH attack is to kill the scout hornet so that subsequent hornets will not follow its trail o’pheromones to your lovely beehive.

And this is where the Japanese honeybees’ highly evolved brains spring into action. As the first scent of Asian Giant Hornet pheromone, the brains of Japanese honeybees spring into “thermal mode.” Five hundred bees form a dense ball around the invading hornet and start flapping their wings like crazy. Vibrating their flight muscles raises the core temperature of the bee ball to 115 degrees. The bees keep it at that temperature for 20 minutes while the hornet cooks to death. A few honeybees may die in the struggle, but the elevated temperature does not seem to affect them the way it clearly disables the enemy.

The research released today found that the pheromone secreted by the hornet seemed to directly trigger a response in the bees. There’s not a “leader bee” and a bunch of “follower bees” in this situation. They all just spring into action. The researchers found this to be an interesting sign of collective hive intelligence. I suspect beekeepers all around the world have known about hive intelligence for eons. Still, it’s interesting when the science starts to catch up.